Meet The Press Hosts Panel of Dicks To Discuss Presidential Low-T

David Brooks must be pining for his lost youth now that he’s a newly-single balding, middle-aged guy tending toward paunch. That’s the only good explanation for the sophomoric little round-robin that took place on Meet the Press yesterday, during which Brooks questioned President Obama’s testosterone levels, while the rest of the bobbleheads nodded and grinned:

Basically since Yalta we’ve had an assumption that borders are basically going to be borders, and once that comes into question, if in Ukraine or in Crimea or anywhere else, then all over the world … all bets are off . . .

… And let’s face it, Obama, whether deservedly or not, does have a — I’ll say it crudely — but a manhood problem in the Middle East. Is he tough enough to stand up to somebody like Assad or somebody like Putin? I think a lot of the rap is unfair, but certainly in the Middle East there is an assumption that he’s not tough enough.

How insipid is that? Let me count the ways . . .

I won’t spend much time on the numerous geopolitical fallacies encapsulated there. Juan Cole is far better qualified to do that and has already done a masterful dissection of those:

Brooks exemplifies the problem with US foreign policy, which is that the inside-the-beltway chickenhawks with small peckers equate military aggression with “manhood.”

The post-Yalta assumption that ‘borders are going to be borders’ of which Brooks says he approves was violated by Israel, which is illegally annexing the Palestinian West bank. But that violation of international law doesn’t bother Brooks in the least, though it causes the US among its biggest diplomatic headaches in the Muslim world. Shouldn’t he be complaining that Obama hasn’t properly stood up to the Likud Party?

You know who had a “manhood” problem? George W. Bush. He acted childishly, wantonly invading Iraq without a shred of international legality, because Saddam “tried to kill my daddy.” He even adopted the diction of a 4-year-old as he initiated the mass slaughter of several hundred thousand people and the displacement of millions. You see, the opposite of “manly” is not, as Brooks imagines, “cautious.” It is childish petulance.

[Take a bow, Mr Cole.]

I’d rather dwell on Brooks’ lack of intellectual rigor and smug [unwarranted] condescension.

Let’s just take this bit, for example:

… And let’s face it, Obama, whether deservedly or not, does have a — I’ll say it crudely — but a manhood problem in the Middle East.

Clearly, Obama’s “problem” is a foregone conclusion that we should all “face” . . . because David Brooks says so? And we should all “face it” “whether [it’s] deservedly or not?”

By the same token, I guess we should all “face the fact” that Barack Obama is a foreign born, Muslim, New World Order Socialist, whether it’s “deservedly or not,” because a whole lot of ignorant Americans believe that?

Also, Mr Brooks, why exactly was it necessary to go with crudity when you have all of those other refinements available in your intellectual-elite toolbox?

Is it perhaps that “wagging willies” appeals to your inner frat boy? or maybe it just tickles you to drop the Upper East Side stick up your ass and get earthy with the guys, occasionally?

Or maybe you’re just a sad, insecure little man who spent his career talking down to the “lower tribes” about the virtues of the “upper tribes” and damned if there isn’t some uppity boy from the “lower tribe” running things that you, Mr Brooks, would be oh so much better at?

I’d say today’s meritocratic elites achieve and preserve their status not mainly by being corrupt but mainly by being ambitious and disciplined. They raise their kids in organized families. They spend enormous amounts of money and time on enrichment. They work much longer hours than people down the income scale, driving their kids to piano lessons and then taking part in conference calls from the waiting room.